Census Bureau Receiving Forms With Star Trek Races Written In

It appears that some people are having some fun with their new US Census forms, including thousands of Trekkies telling the government they not exactly human. However, the government doesn’t think it is very funny and you could end up getting fined (unless you can prove your non-terrestrial ancestry). More details below.

Trekkies being counted

As mandated in the US Constitution, every ten years the government conducts a census to count up everyone in the country. In March tens of millions of Census forms were sent out to every household in the USA. Forms are already coming in, but apparently some people are not taking it seriously, or at least not Question 9 which asks for Race, and allows you to fill one in if it isn’t one of the options on the form. This is from an article in the Christian Science Monitor:

I found it weird when they had two questions on race. One question asked only if you were espanic and the next on the different races. What up with that. Are they trying to find illegals to tell them vote for me and we’ll make you legal? The Executive branch is controling the census this time not the Judicial as in years and years past. Also why do they need to know if you have a morgage or not or pay rent? Are they going to threaten folks who own their home with eminent domain confiscation if they disagree?

Apparently many older “Americans of African descent” still use the term “Negro”. There was an article about this a couple months ago, that they tried to get rid of it in the 2000 census on some forms, and some (generally older) Af.Am.s wrote in “Negro” rather than put a check in the “Black/African Am.” box. So it’s still there.

And if your husband gets “insulted” by it, he needs to get over himself. My 102 year old great grandmother still calls herself “colored”.

You have to remember, the you are only legally obliged to provide the # of people living in your household, nothing else. All those other quests are just padding and you are NOT required to fill them out.

To clarify some more, the government cannot legally do anything to you if you do fill them out with fake information as they shouldn’t be asking those questions in the first place.

A spokes-person from the Census Bureau said
that in some cases (like not filling out & sending
the form back) you MIGHT be fined by the Justice
Department, but in all likelihood no one will be
fined anything. I sent mine in with very minimal
information – even though I’m omnipotent, I still
want to be counted.

@14 There’s only one question on race. The other is for Hispanic Origin. Hispanic is considered an ethnicity, not a race. Your other questions are rooted in paranoia.

@22 You’re required to answer all the questions on the form.

Your answers are protected by Title 13. If you don’t fill out the form properly, you’ll just waste a lot of your tax dollars.

The question about tenure (own vs rent) is a good one. As near as I can guess, tenure data provide a general proxy for higher income households (owner) and lower income household (renter). The question is then, why is that on the census form. Probably for the distribution of federal funds.

Carmen, it’s sad that someone with your name would be so ignorant of geography. Notice that “Middle Eastern” is not an option. The continent of Asia includes the entirety of the traditional middle east, with the exception of Egypt, which of course is in Africa.

Therefore Pakistani are indeed Asian, as are Iraqi, Israeli, Iranian, and Indian (from India).

What’s even more embarrassing is that there are people who think the government has some nefarious purpose for finding out what race you consider yourself. Oh no, they know I’m a white guy! I better watch out!

In 1930, questions included:
– Value of home if owned, or monthly rental, if rented
– Radio Set
– Does this family live on a farm?
– Marital Condition
– Age at first marriage
– Attended School or College any time since Sept 1, 1929
– Whether able to read and write
– Place of birth of each person, and both his/her parents
– Mother Tongue of Foreign Born
– Year of Immigration, Naturalization
– Able to speak English
– Occupation
– Industry
– Employment
– Veteran status

Race still matters, although it shouldn’t. And I suspect that the question will be on at least one or two census forms after it finally stops mattering.

I checked “some other race” and wrote “American”. It is true, and colorblind! I am actually Native American, in that I was born here, but I am not what is commonly considered “Native American” (i.e. Indian), so didn’t want to confuse them.

They did have hispanic as an option, it was in the previous question and broken down into which type of hispanic person…What a pain in the neck!!!…My adopted daughter is bi-racial. Her biological mother was white and her biological father was “an unknown hispanic male”…I have no idea if her genealogical ancestry is Mexican, Cuban, Columbian, etc.

I think its ridiculous that they would actually fine people for this… I mean as long as the other information is legitimate what does it matter if someone put something in the fill in box as a joke. I mean they complain that a large majority of the people dont respond and fill the census out anyways so they should be happy people at least sent it in.

I also want to know where the “Can-sometimes-be-rabid” fans of the StarGate shows are at in all this. I just know some one out there marked Tau’ri, Goa’uld, Tok’ra, Asgard, Ori, Lantean, Wraith, Athosian, Asuran, Genii, or Satedan on the form.

The Census is a bit confusing if you are Hispanic. You can say you are Hispanic in one question but then you have to choose a race on another question. This is confusing many people and they don’t know what to put for race if they are Hispanic. Some of the choices, Japanese and Chinese, for example, are not races but nationalities. Very confusing.
They should just ask for race/ethnicity in one question and list them all together, including Hispanic.

I like the questions in 1930 listed in #36. If you are going to do a census, get some information.

@36 – those questions are on the longer forms, a certain percentage of people will get a follow up visit, or form with more questions.

@43 – By the way, the Constitution only Mandates that we be counted, the other questions are not Constitutional, and if they try to fine me for not answering the ones I left blank well they can wait until hell freezes over for their money.

To explain Hispanic:
Hispanic is essentially anyone that speaks Spanish as their mother tongue. It is usually extended to include all of Central and South Americas, even those that speak Portuguese or native languages. Therefore, Hispanic includes people from Spain, people of European decent, African (slave) decent, native decent and the mixtures. A couple countries in south America actually have rather large populations of Asians that have been there for 200 plus years. They, too, are technically Hispanics, especially if the person in question is of mixed, as many seem to be.

That is why they ask for a race outside of Hispanic. You can be Hispanic and identify as white, native, black, or even Asian, plus all the mixture therein. I hope that helps!